Installed on a rough stretch of the Spanish coast, these terrestrial islands enable comfortable colonization of landscapes in a state of “permanent revision,” where solid ground gives way to more ambiguous landforms.

(Some patterned contours, some peaks, and some of the indigenous population. Photo courtesy of Vicente Guallart.)

If we can be permitted to continue our self-indulgent streak, we would like to imagine these microcoasts having been fitted with an internal fantamagical machinery that allows them to expand and contract, either following some sort of obscure, unknowable tectonic logic or in direct response to external stimuli, for instance, beach erosion and the fluctuating numbers of English pensioners.

Each one is like an orthogonal paramecium genetically modified with an Autobot's DNA, unfurling its geometry laterally or outwards into the sea, perhaps joining others of its own species to form a superorganism and in the process Spain gains a small province, before mitotically subdividing into beach furniture. For power, they graze on a diet of sun, wind and waves.

When there is no more edge, when the sea finally abuts the city, they will just migrate to new ecotonal pastures.

(More islands. Photo courtesy of Vicente Guallart.)

And while all of this is happening, you can picnic or sunbathe or set up permanent camp.